[vox-tech] dumb html question

[Micah Cowan]

On Thu, Dec 13, 2001 at 01:08:17PM -0800, Matt Roper wrote:
> I seem to recall that CSS (and JavaScript also) have two comment
> markers:  "<!--" and "//".  Both of these markers are only active until
> the end of the line, the same way "#" works in shell scripts.

"//" works that way, not "<!--".  Also, technically, neither CSS nor
JavaScript use "<!--" - that's an SGML/XML comment.  It would not be
recognized in standalone JavaScript or CSS documents.

> I think the problem with your first example is that <!-- kills
> everything on its line, so your STYLE tag really is empty (it only
> contains a comment).  The problem with the second example is that
> "-->" has no meaning in CSS (it isn't an end of comment marker like
> it is in HTML) so the ">" at the end is getting interpreted
> strangely.
>
> What you want is:
> 
> <STYLE type="text/css">
>     <!--
>     H1 {font-size: +33pt}
>     // -->
> </STYLE>

This is frequently used - however, oddly enough it is not in the
example given in the HTML spec.

> Now the first and third lines inside the STYLE tag are comments as far
> as CSS browsers are concerned.  Old browsers that don't understand CSS
> will simply think the whole thing is an HTML comment.  Note that a CSS
> capable browser would accept
> 
> <STYLE type="text/css">
>     <!--
>     H1 {font-size: +33pt}
>     //
> </STYLE>
> 
> just fine.

I don't think so.  As I said, the "<!--" is interpreted by the HTML
parser, not the CSS parser - it's just that most browsers have a
"special case" in interpreting HTML comments within CSS.  But most
browsers would still expect you to end your HTML comment.

Micah